NEW BEDFORD — Authorities have accused a Plainville teenager of coldly urging a friend to kill himself last summer, claiming she helped him research how to die from carbon monoxide poisoning and told him to “get back in” his truck when he had second thoughts.

WHEN Conrad Roy took his own life, police initially did not think it was suspicious.
The Massachusetts teenager suffered from anxiety and had tried to commit suicide before. But in the days after his death, police began to suspect that it was not as simple as they first thought.
As they trawled through his mobile phone they found more than 1000 text messages from a girl allegedly encouraging him to carry out the act. Those messages were from Michelle Carter, the granddaughter of his parent’s family friend whom he met while on vacation a few years earlier.
In the six days leading up to his death, the pair had exchanged numerous messages, the content of which led police to charge the then 17-year-old Carter with involuntary manslaughter. It is understood this is the first time such a case has ever been tried worldwide.

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A Massachusetts teen accused of convincing her friend to commit suicide faces involuntary manslaughter charges after prosecutors say text messages show she was an accessory.

However, the defense argued Michelle Carter was also troubled and was just trying to help her boyfriend, Conrad Roy.

WCVB reported Carter and her parents, who were in court Monday, did not talk about the thousands of text messages between her and the deceased in July of 2014.

Carter is accused of coercing the 18-year-old him into suicide. In one text she said to Roy, “You said you were gonna do it. I don’t get like why you aren’t.”

Roy responded, “I don’t get it either. I don’t know.”

The defense argued Carter actually encouraged Roy not to take his own life and that the judge should drop the manslaughter charge because her attorneys claim she was “brainwashed.”

“The government is harping, if you will, on her saying when are you going to do it? When are you going to do it?” Joseph Cataldo, Carter’s attorney, said. “What they are not harping on are all the times she said don’t do it, don’t do it.”

... I realize that the defense attorney needs to protect his client, but I'm disturbed that he chose to blame the victim as part of the defense.

I don't see that as victim blaming. With suicide, it is hard to determine why it happened. Was it because the victim's doctor failed to prescribe the proper antidepressant, or did bullying at school drive him to it or did his parents ignore him or a thousand other things. In this case, the accused's lawyer is saying that the prosecution is citing only those e-mails where the accused asks why the victim had not committed suicide already and not citing those where the accused allegedly telling the victim to not do it.

Also, I would think that suicide is the one case where it can truthfully said that the victim did it.

ummmm you don't think someone who kills himself is to blame for it? Usually he or she is the only one to blame.

For the actual taking of their own life, it's absolutely only their fault.
But if someone is encouraging a person suffering from depression or someone with low mental capacity with the intention of making them do it then they're at fault in some way too.

People determined enough to commit suicide will eventually do it, but they don't need someone handing them a loaded gun (or in this case, 1,000 texts asking why he hasn't done it yet, how he should do it and that he shouldn't back out).

And no, the victim is not to be blamed. Did they kill themselves, yes, but they were a victim of their own screwed up mind. Depression and suicidal idealization are not things that you can just chose not to deal with, they will blind side you in moments you don't even think of or realize (I once actually was laughing and having a good time at a friends party when the realization I could walk out of the room and stand in the road to die quickly with all the traffic came to me. I had not been physically depressed until that moment, but for the next two months I was once again in a slump).

Yes, they can fight and struggle and do their best, taking all the medications and all the therapies recommended...but for some, the brain occasionally just wins. My mother struggled up until her last day to fight against the thoughts but unfortunately, she lost that battle, just as this teen did.

(and yes, maybe I'm bias'd due to the depression I and my mother had suffered, but I can also understand him.)

TAUNTON, Mass. -- A young Massachusetts woman accused of sending her boyfriend dozens of text messages urging him to kill himself when they were teenagers was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter Friday.

I'm kind of surprised at my own post on this from 2 years ago. I don't know if I still feel so strongly that someone's words can constitute manslughter.

When I first heard about this case I felt much as you did, but after seeing dozens of the released texts my mind was changed. This isn't someone who raged in an online game, or posted hateful comments on social media. The texts show deliberate, repeated coaching up to and including a command to get back in the truck after the young man attempted to abort his suicide attempt.

From this article: When he became sick from the fumes and stepped out, prosecutors said, Ms. Carter ordered him by phone to “get back in.” He was found dead the next day.